Friday, January 30, 2015

Earlier this month HTC has released Android 5.0 for the HTC One M8 together
with the HTC Sense 6.0. New Over The Air (OTA) update started rolling out for WWE unbranded devices on Wednesday (28.01.2015), so during these few days I had a chance to look closely at the user interface changes after the update. I didn't expect many, because HTC Sense version is still the same, but Android Lollipop is quite a big platform upgrade, so some major and some little visual changes are all over the place.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Android
5.0 "Lollipop" has been unveiled on June 25, 2014 and it’s the latest
version of the Android mobile operating system developed by Google. Only few months later the HTC One M7 - the best smartphone of the 2013 and the HTC One M8 - the best smartphone of the 2014 are already running Android Lollipop together with the most powerful Android custom UI - HTC Sense 6.0.

Monday, January 26, 2015

In Android 4.4 "Kitkat" (API 19) Google has changed the default permissions for the external
SD Card (usually microSD). Since that Android OS version

third-party apps have no more access to write on the SD Card. It's a bit problematic, because now you might not be able to use your favourite Files Manager to move or copy files on the external storage.

According
to the HTC-Vietnam site, Android 5.0 Lollipop update with the HTC Sense UI on board is suppose to land on multiple HTC devices in 2015. Thanks to HTC's impressive update timing we can already enjoy Lollipop taste on the HTC One M7 and the HTC One M8 in both Sense and Google Play Edition flavours. Earlier in 2014 we already wrote about possible roadmap in this article: "HTC devices to receive Android 5.0 "Lollipop" update". Here are some fresh details:

Sunday, January 25, 2015

This solution
is based on the experience with some HTC and Nexus devices, however it will work on any
device running Android Lollipop or newer/older Android OS with SELinux (Security-Enhanced
Linux) kernel security module.

What's the problem? Sometimes you might not be able to access the content of the internal userdata memory, also known as "virtual SD card" - located as /data/media/0 on the userdata partition. The "bad" workaround is to boot the device in a recovery mode and gain the access to all files from there, but this doesn't solve the problem at all.

Open a command prompt on the PC (cmd.exe), type and confirm each command with ENTER:

cd /d c:\mini-sdk

adb shell

su

restorecon -FR /data/media/0

exit

What's going to happen? Restorecon is a program used to restore file(s) default SELinux security contexts. It can be run at any time to correct errors or to add support for new policy. With a corrected SELinux security context for the /data/media/0 you will be able to access the content of the virtual SD card again.

Do you have any questions or comments? Feel free to share! Also, if you like this article, please use media sharing buttons (Twitter, G+, Facebook) below this post!

For latest news follow Android RevolutionHD on popular social platforms:

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

The
best smartphone of the 2014 – the HTC One M8 is already running Android 5.0.1
with the HTC Sense 6.0 interface. Thanks to the OTA update package from the
13th January HTC One M8 owners can already enjoy all the goodies that comes
with one of the biggest Android platform update – Lollipop.

The UI
is slightly refreshed, but it’s still HTC Sense 6.0 after all. However, HTC is
already working on the HTC Sense 7 update that will become official together
with the HTC One M9 premiere (if that’s the proper name).

Currently
only the HTC One M8 Developer Edition is getting Lollipop OTA and it’s tagged
as 4.16.1540.8. WWE Edition (.401) is around the corner too, and it should
appear later this week. It will be tagged as 4.16.401.8. But don’t be disappointed, you can already have Android 5.0.1 Lollipop running on your
device, even if it’s not the Developer Edition. Just head to this thread and install the latest Android Revolution HD 30.1 based on the 4.16.1540.8 update. It should work on most variants of the HTC One M8,

except the U.S. models.

One of the biggest changes in Android 5.0 is ART (Android Runtime) - an application runtime environment used by the older Android mobile operating system. ART replaces Dalvik, which is the process virtual machine originally used by Android, and performs transformation of the application's bytecode into native instructions that are later executed by the device's runtime environment. ART brings improvements in performance, garbage collection, applications debugging and profiling. Among with a tones of security fixes and other major changes, Android 5.0 Lollipop also contains major new platform features for developers, with over 5,000 new APIs added for use by applications.

It's definitely one of the most important system update in the Android history. And since HTC One M8 is the best Android device up to date, it's a must have update for every HTC One M8 owner.

Android 5.0.1 Lollipop with the HTC Sense 6.0 for the HTC One M8 (4.16.1540.8) - link

Do you have any questions or comments? Feel free to share! Also, if you like this article, please use media sharing buttons (Twitter, G+, Facebook) below this post!

For latest news follow Android RevolutionHD on popular social platforms: